Landscaping Around Exposed Tree Roots

Learn ways to landscape around trees and cover up tree roots. If you have trees with exposed roots, consider adding extra soil to cover the roots, adding a border around the trees, and trimming back branches to increase the natural light so that the grass can grow and cover the exposed roots.

LESLIE: Alright, out in the garden with Mark in Nebraska. What can we do for you?

MARK: Hey, I’ve got a question. I’ve got a well established tree in my front yard; very large.

TOM: OK.

MARK: And the roots are starting to grow out of the ground and make it hard to mow around and that kind of stuff.

TOM: Alright.

MARK: What is the best way to resubmerge the roots? I’m going to guess that involves adding dirt to the top of them; not …

TOM: Yeah, I don’t think that you’re going to be able to push those roots down. I think you’re going to have to landscape around it.

LESLIE: (chuckling) You will it down.

TOM: Yeah.

LESLIE: You think about it a lot. (chuckling)

MARK: It’d be nice, but I don’t think that’s going to happen. (laughter)

TOM: Well you know, why don’t you – why don’t you think of a new way to landscape around that tree; where you can perhaps raise the soil level in the areas that are affected? You know, maybe you can use some landscape ties or some brick edging or something like that and create a higher level closer to the tree so you have another six inches of soil there.

MARK: OK.

TOM: What you might want to think is undercut some of those branches, too, so you can get a little light in there and that will help the grass grow as well. We have a big tree like that in our side yard and every year I take one more large branch like from the bottom moving up; just to let a little more light in and I think I’ve just got about it to the point now where it could sustain the lawn. But for many years, it was just not enough light to do that. So sometimes you have to thin a tree out just to make it – the grass grow around it.

LESLIE: Yeah, but it also helps the tree to be more healthy by thinning out some of those branches anyway.